The concert version of the piece was originally written for Rachel Gawell, and onstage she weaves the cello part the poem together. Rachel has performed the piece on No Signal concerts, at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, and with the Peabody Camerata, which awarded the work its composition prize in 2007. Catherine Allen of the Sounds New chamber ensemble has also performed it in Berkeley, California.

In the film version the cellist has the same conflicted relationship to the instrument as the narrator in the poem has to the sea. Both people are lonely and dedicated; both are unsure if they would choose the life they’ve led, and both are unsure if there was ever any choice at all.

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[…] solo violin piece, was funded on Kickstarter, and a case study of project was awarded by TechDirt. The Seafarer, a film of a piece for solo acting cello, setting an Old English poem translated by Burton Raffel, […]